The Interview
by xerxia31
Summary: This has all of the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

It feels like entering another world, driving through the grounds of the west campus. Everything is wide open, lush, green, alive, a huge contrast to the dirty and crowded city where I've been living for the past two years.

There are young people everywhere on the expansive lawns, throwing frisbees or leaning against trees with books or binders in hand, and not a cellphone to be seen. It's like a utopian fantasy world, on the surface.

But I know better.

I pull up to the building where my appointment will be. Grey stone, old, but not yet old enough to be considered classic. Its architectural failings have been compensated for by brightly-painted window trim and shutters, and climbing vines clinging to the stones, bursting with purple flowers. Elegant, but only if you don't look too closely. For all of its window dressing, it's an institution.

I'd been instructed to wait in the lobby, arranged as a waiting room of sorts. It's little more than a dozen chairs ringing the area, facing the double set of interior doors, faded industrial carpet underfoot. I settle into one, the sun-hardened vinyl squeaks in protest. The walls are covered with inspirational posters, pictures of sunsets and mountaintops with words of wisdom in bold print underneath. Motivation. Persistence. Achievement.

"Mr. Mellark?"

I jump to my feet as a young woman with glossy black ringlets enters the room where I've been cooling my heels for twenty minutes. She smiles at me. "They're ready for you now."

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I wipe my hands on my suit pants before picking up my portfolio. I can't remember the last time I was this nervous about anything. Young Peeta Mellark was an outgoing, gregarious fellow. But I haven't been that guy in a very long time.

The doors close behind me, electronic locks snapping ominously.

The young woman, Rue, she tells me her name is, leads me along a dim corridor, the floors polished to gleaming, reflecting scattered pools of light. "We only use emergency lighting in the offices on the weekends," she confides. "Budget…" I nod. The schools where I worked while finishing my master's degrees had all struggled with budgets too. Education is not a career that is steeped in money.

But working with children is what I've chosen. And this job, at this particular school, is the one I want more than anything.

Art therapist at the Panem Institute.

The Panem Institute is the preeminent residential facility for kids in trouble, kids struggling with substance abuse issues or mental health disorders. And unlike most centres of its kind, lack of funds is not a barrier to admission.

I can't help wondering how different my life might have turned out if I'd had access to a place like this when I was a teen. Would I be established now, with a life I could be proud of? A wife, maybe even a family of my own?

Instead, I'm thirty, with a shiny new double MA in social work and art therapy, and precious little in the way of resumé experience. That the institute is even meeting with me is almost miraculous. Apart from student placements and volunteer work, I have almost nothing to show for my life.

But I want this job so badly I can almost taste it. This job, this place- this is why I've worked so hard the past six years, for the chance to make up for my own failings.

My childhood wasn't fantastic, but it was typical by most measures. The youngest of three children, I was born upstate, in a quintessential white-washed all-American small town where everyone knew everyone else. My parents didn't get along, but they stuck it out for the sake of us boys, which is retrospect was probably far, far worse for us than if they'd simply split.

Instead, beaten down by a life she hated and a town she couldn't escape, my mother was cold, and often rough with us. Rye, Brann and I learned young to hide from her temper. She, in turn, hid in a bottle.

My dad, though, was my hero, mine and my brothers' too. He coached our little league teams, came to every one of our wrestling matches, filled our lives with cookies and hugs. Shielded us from mother's ever-increasing drunken and violent episodes.

Then midway through my senior year of high school, the unthinkable happened. My father, my kind, generous father, was murdered. Shot by some punk barely older than I was, killed for nothing more than the two hundred dollars in the cash register of the small family bakery my father owned.

I was devastated.

There was no one left to moderate my mother's behaviour with my father gone and my brothers away at school. Down to one final obligation, freedom in sight, she made it her sole purpose in life to be rid of me as well. Or maybe she was just drowning in grief and alcoholism and wasn't even aware of how she was acting, a theory my brother broached at the time. Whatever the reason, life at home deteriorated. Badly.

And like my mother, I sought refuge in a bottle. Or many, many bottles.

I'd already been offered a college wrestling scholarship based on my earlier performances. A good thing since I showed up at the state wrestling championship - my last ever high school wrestling meet and the first one where my father wasn't a spectator - hungover as hell, or maybe still a little drunk, and ended up placing second.

College was supposed to be my escape, but by the time I got to State that September, I was far more interested in getting bombed than in studying or practicing.

Over the course of a year, I destroyed every dream I'd ever had, every hope, every plan, every relationship. I alienated every friend, every mentor, even, eventually, my own brothers.

And I hadn't even cared.

Twelve years later, I've clawed my way back, one sober day at a time, through more ups and downs than I can even remember. Fought to become a man my father would have been proud of. But I didn't do it alone. Therapists and counsellors helped me heal, and in doing so showed me how satisfying it could be to guide someone back from the brink, to help set them on the right path.

And that's why I'm here now, standing sweaty-palmed but hopeful at the door of a boardroom. Interviewing for a job where I could change the lives of troubled young people like I once was.

My escort, Rue, pulls the door open and gestures for me to enter. The room is small and much brighter than the hallway, with a pair of large windows and pale wood reflecting the warm afternoon light. It takes me a moment to adjust to the brightness, to focus on the group of people waiting for me.

Then the bottom drops out of my stomach, and out of my world.

I never got blackout drunk. Consequently, I remember every stupid decision I made, every assholish word I said. And the recipient of one of the tirades I regret most is sitting across the table, her ebony hair pulled back in an elegant chignon.

Katniss Everdeen.

She and I went to school together, from kindergarten all the way through until I ruined my life. I had the worst crush on her back then. But until after we graduated from high school, she didn't even know I was alive.

Imagine my shock when, a few months into my ill-fated college career, I ran into her at a party on campus. I'd had no idea she went to the same school. But I was well into a bottle of Bombay that night, and what should have been the start of an epic relationship, or at least a chance for me to talk to the girl I'd lusted after always, turned into a nightmare.

I was already slipping then, already on academic probation, already suspended from the wrestling team and constantly in trouble with my coaches. I was weeks away from losing everything - my scholarship, my sport, my friends. And every encounter with my professors, with my academic advisor, with the counsellor the athletic department had insisted on, every single one had impressed on me that I wasn't good enough, though I am, in retrospect, certain that's not what any of them had meant. But I'd had so much anger in my system then, so much loathing.

And Katniss, beautiful, seemingly unattainable Katniss, for some reason seeing her there triggered the deepest well of self pity to open in my chest. She was, in that moment, the embodiment of everything I'd been told I could never have. My gut clenches and my heart hurts as I remember the vitriol I'd spewed at her that night, the accusations about her character and motivations, every one of them utterly untrue. I'd called her stuck-up, selfish, a bitch, among so many other words. Katniss, beautiful, stoic Katniss hadn't reacted at all, apart from a widening of her eyes and maybe a slight trembling of her lower lip. When I'd run out of filth to throw her way, she'd simply blinked and said softly, "This isn't you, Peeta." Then she'd walked away.

I have heard those words in my head a thousand times since that night.

It had taken another three years of couch-surfing and homelessness, of lying and begging and stealing to feed my addiction, before I finally hit rock-bottom. In an alley in the Capitol, with a bunch of other low-life scum just like me, I'd listened as they made plans to rob a convenience store a few blocks away. So desperate was I for the few bucks it would have garnered me that I was ready to go along with them… until I saw the gun.

The idea of robbing a little mom-and-pop convenience store at gunpoint was my come to Jesus moment. I was hunched in filth, hungry and so desperate for a drink that I was steps away from becoming the man who had killed my father.

The road back from that point wasn't straight, and it wasn't easy. I'd like to say that I never had another drink after that, but it'd be a lie. But I've been sober now for seven years and forty-four days, a purple medallion in my pocket reminds me every day how far I've come.

As does Katniss's voice in my head, reminding me when I feel weak, when the cravings hit hard, that I'm not that person.

But she doesn't know that. Looking across the table, she must be seeing the asshole who treated everyone, and especially her, like dirt.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Mellark," an older, balding man says, smiling. I recognize his voice, Plutarch Heavensbee, the institute's director, with whom I've spoken on the phone several times before today. I hesitate though, steeling myself to meet Katniss's eyes. If she looks uncomfortable I'll leave. It wouldn't be fair to her if I stayed. As disappointing as it'll be to walk away from this opportunity that I want so damned badly, I have only myself to blame.

I catch her gaze, silver pools in the sunlight, expecting her to be glaring at me. She's not though, her expression is carefully neutral. But as if she sees the question in my glance, she nods.

Plutarch introduces the others in turn; Reza Seder, head of counselling services, Dr. Lavinia DeSantis, head of medical services, Alma Coin, head of security. "And of course you know Ms. Everdeen," Plutarch says, his smile widening, and I can feel my eyebrows crawling up to my hairline. She knew I was coming, told the others that she knew me, and yet I'm still here. They're still going to interview me.

"Hello, Peeta," she says, in that smoky smooth bourbon voice that has acted as my conscience for years. And, okay, has narrated my fantasies too, if I'm being honest.

"I've already disclosed to the board that we grew up together," she continues, "and they're okay with my presence. But of course I'll leave if it makes you uncomfortable having me here." Her words and delivery are coolly professional, but beneath them I hear a faint note of pleading. She wants to be here, I just know it. And though I'm likely signing the death warrant on this job, I find myself asking her to stay.

This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time. But if I've learned anything from my primary therapist, Dr. Aurelius, it's that I can't run from my past. And if I've learned anything from AA, it's that I can't ignore my shortcomings.

Each member questions me, softballs to start - my education, my job experiences, my plans. I pull out my portfolio, walk them through the educational and therapeutic programs I've developed, outline what worked during my previous placements, what innovations I'd like to employ. They seem impressed, and I start to relax.

"You didn't go to college right after high school, Mr. Mellark?" Alma Coin asks, her strange, pale eyes cold and judgemental. I stiffen; this is where previous interviews have gone off the rails. I'd never outright lie about my addiction, but I'm not keen to bring it up either. Even seven years sober, people are reluctant to entrust an alcoholic to watch over children.

"That's correct," I tell her. "I didn't start my undergrad until I was twenty-four."

"Why is that?" I could tell her that I couldn't afford it until then, that's true, or about my father's death throwing a spanner in my plans, also true.

Katniss is looking at me, grey eyes wide and guileless. She nods again, and it feels like encouragement. I know what I have to say.

"I'm an alcoholic," I tell them, bracing for their reactions. But nobody flinches. "I've been sober for seven years. But I started drinking in high school, and I lost a lot of years to the disease." Across from me, a hint of a smile graces Katniss's pouty peach lips. I take it as my cue to keep going. "That's why I went into social work, and why I want to work here so much. To help kids like me. To maybe save some of them from the mistakes I made."

There are nods around the table, no one looks particularly surprised. I don't know whether Katniss has told them, or if it came up in my background check.

"And you're not concerned that working with addicted children might trigger you to revisit your own demons? Your CV is completely lacking in experience with troubled youth." It's true, my field placements were all in middle schools, my experience as an art therapist mostly with kids with ADHD or autism spectrum disorders. The kids here by and large have much more complex issues, abuse and addiction and mental illness all compounded, often violent and criminal backgrounds too.

"I've spent years in therapy learning to cope with my triggers," I tell Coin.

"That's not the same as real-world experience," Seder interjects. "These kids, the things they tell you, the things they've seen. It's gutting."

"I realize that," I tell her, affecting the most professional tone I'm capable of despite the cavern that's opened in my stomach, the knowledge that I'm nowhere near qualified enough in their eyes. "I completed a research project on intergenerational addiction in college and interviewed hundreds of young addicts."

"That's really not the same as interacting with them day to day," Seder says, and it's not cruel, but it feels dismissive.

"I also observed troubled youth in counselling during my practicum while I was in graduate school." They know this, it's in my resumé, along with letters of reference from the clinician supervisors. But Seder is shaking her head and Coin looks unimpressed and I can feel the opportunity slipping away.

"Peeta has volunteered as a mentor at the Children's Hospital's substance abuse treatment program for more than three years," Katniss interjects, and every hair on my body stands on end. Because while that's true, it's also something that's not in my resumé, something I've avoided self-reporting because it's common knowledge that the program volunteers are all addicts in recovery themselves.

I have no idea how she knows that.

My gaze snaps to Katniss. Her expression remains carefully neutral, but there is the barest hint of a smile in her silver eyes.

"That's an excellent program," Dr. De Santis says, looking up from her notes for the first time. "They're incredibly selective about who they choose to work with their clients."

"They are," I agree. The screening had been brutal, but it had been necessary, so many of those kids have lead lives that make mine look like a walk in the park and many are not shy about sharing all of the horrific details. "They can't risk having the volunteers drop out or relapse. The kids need the stability of knowing that they can't scare away their mentors. So many of them have had everyone else in their lives give up on them." I swallow hard; it's the reason I volunteer there. I've seen myself in so many of their faces, kids who use alcohol and drugs to escape the pain, kids who lash out and push away the people around them before those people can abandon them. Like I'd done to my teachers and coaches, my friends and my brothers.

Like I'd done to Katniss, all of those years ago.

"How do you find your personal experiences impact your work with those children?" Katniss asks, a gently leading question, and one for which I am so grateful.

"I can empathise with them in ways that their doctors and case workers often can't," I say, mostly tamping down the waver in my voice. Four sets of eyes watch me intently. "It's the whole basis for the program, giving these kids not only guidance, but hope for their future. If I can succeed after all of my mistakes, after all I've done, then they can too."

"And you intend on continuing to volunteer there?" Coin asks.

"I do." I've already checked with the hospital about whether this job would constitute a conflict of interest, they assured me it would not.

Across the table, each of the interviewers smiles, even Coin, though her smile looks a little less genuine. But I only have eyes for Katniss. Because her smile feels like forgiveness. And though this is my dream job, I feel like even if I don't get it I've accomplished something monumental here. I've shown Katniss that she was right, that nasty boy who hurt her, who made her feel small and alone, that person wasn't me.

Plutarch claps his hands. "Excellent, my boy," he says. "Now let's talk salary."

"I… what?"

"For the position." At my expression, he laughs. "The interview is really just a formality," he says, mirth twinkling in his eyes. "The job is yours if you want it." He pushes a couple of papers across the table. A contract. "I know it's a little less in salary than you'd make in private practice, but we offer a comprehensive benefits package. Take a couple of days to look it over and let us know."

I don't need a couple of days. I don't need a couple of minutes. "I want the job," I tell him firmly.

"Well then," Plutarch booms with evident pleasure. "Welcome aboard, Mr. Mellark." He reaches across to shake my hand firmly, and I can't help my goofy grin. I got the job!

Plutarch informs me that their admin will get in touch with me over the next few days to file the tax and legal paperwork they need, and then I'll begin at the start of the new term, some four weeks away. And I nod in all the right places, but my mind is spinning so fast I'm almost dizzy with it.

I shake each of their hands in turn, lingering just a bit longer to squeeze Katniss's hand tightly. I thank each of them, but my gratitude to her means more. I think she can tell.

"Could you see Mr. Mellark out?" Plutarch asks Katniss, and she agrees, though she doesn't meet my eyes.

I follow her silently down the corridor, towards the exit, the delicate tapping of her heels on linoleum almost drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Katniss was a cute kid, tiny and scrappy, and she had morphed into a fierce and self-possessed young woman by the time we'd graduated high school. But now, at thirty, she's an absolute bombshell. Still lean, but with delicate curves that her pencil skirt and blouse highlight perfectly. She walks with confidence, back straight, head held high. She's more intimidating than ever.

At the electronic doors, she pauses, hand poised just above the lever that would release the locks. Then she sighs, and glances back at me over her shoulder. "Would you like to have a cup of tea with me? Catch up?" I'm nearly rendered speechless; not only is Katniss Everdeen willing to work with me, she's willing to talk with me too.

"I'd like that," I rasp, the first words I've spoken directly to her in twelve long years.

She leads me back into the building and up a set of stairs. Another corridor stretches in front of us, windowless doors set close together. "Our offices," she says. Partway down the hall, she stops and pulls a set of keys from her pocket. A small brass plate on the door reads Katniss Everdeen, Lead Addictions Therapist.

Her office is small, and appears to be set up for both paperwork and individual counselling sessions with a tiny desk tucked back into the corner but comfortable looking couches dominating the space. She confirms my guess. "I see the lower risk kids here," she says. "It feels less institutional that way."

I can only stare, stunned, as she unlocks a cabinet and withdraws a tea kettle. I knew Katniss's title here from Plutarch's introduction of course. But until now, it hadn't really sunk in, what she does. She's an _addictions counsellor_. How utterly incredible that she went into the very field that eventually inspired my own career path.

"Sit, please," she says over her shoulder. I slip off my blazer, draping it over the arm of the couch, then sink into plush microfibre. The ceramic clink of teacups and spoons and the sultry sway of her perfect posterior as she putters, preparing tea and humming just faintly are almost hypnotic. For all of the times I'd thought about Katniss Everdeen, I never imagined I'd ever actually see her again, and good lord she's so much hotter than even my edgiest fantasies. "Black, right?" she says, snapping me out of my lurid thoughts.

"Uh, yeah," I say after a moment's pause where I try to pull myself together and remember that she's making tea, so that we can talk. So that I can apologize to her. As glorious as her ass is, I have no business looking at her that way. I lost any possible chance I might have had a dozen years ago.

But she knows how I take my tea. The last time I saw her, gin was the only thing I was drinking.

She sets a red mug in front of me, on the low table between the couches. But she herself sits beside me, instead of across from me, which surprises me. Though maybe it shouldn't, since she's a therapist. Knowing how to set someone at ease is part of her training. It's backfiring in my case though, since her closeness feels intimate. I catch a hint of her scent, something fresh and green but with a little bit of spice, like a campfire in the woods. So perfectly Katniss. "How have you been?" she says, sipping from her own mug.

"Better," I tell her, because she's not asking to make small talk. In addition to knowing everything I confessed in the interview, she was there when my world fell apart, she saw first hand how shitty I was.

"I'm glad," she says softly, and she smiles, and it's so beautiful and sweet it nearly breaks my heart.

"I am so sorry," I tell her, but the words are completely inadequate. How do you tell someone that they are not only your biggest regret, but also your biggest inspiration? "For how I treated you when I was drinking. You didn't deserve any of that, and I have regretted it every day."

"I know," she says.

"And what you did for me today," I continue before my nerve runs out. "I can't begin to thank you. You not only gave me this chance when you could have told any of them I wasn't worth considering, but you actively helped me in the interview."

"You earned the job, Peeta. Plutarch was already convinced before you even walked in the door."

"The others weren't."

She laughs. "I knew Lavinia would love you. And Alma, well, she doesn't really like anyone, but I have a feeling you'll win her over eventually."

"What about you?" I can't help asking. She's treating me so kindly, but she can't possibly have forgiven me. I know she hasn't forgotten.

"I believe in second chances." Her smile is softer, a little pained. "I knew you'd find your way back."

"I was such a dick."

"You were," she agrees. "But I knew that wasn't you."

"You said that back then too," I tell her, my tea forgotten. "I, uhm." My neck feels hot and I rub it distractedly. "I hear you saying that, when I'm having a difficult day. It's helped me so much over the years. You've helped me more than you'll ever know." It's embarrassing as hell to admit that. But she deserves the truth.

She snorts, and it's a sound so at odds with her elegant presentation and with the seriousness of our conversation. My gaze snaps up to her face, she looks amused and abashed.

"You're the reason I went into psychology," she says, and my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. "I was a biology major first year. But seeing how everyone failed you after your dad died, and how easy it was for you to fall…" she trails off. "And then when you came back to school to try again, sober and working so hard, I knew I'd made the right choice."

"You were there?"

She nods. "Just for a semester. I was finishing my masters. I saw you a couple of times on campus, but you never noticed me."

Honestly, that's probably for the best. That early in my recovery I was still so fragile, just getting through classes took every bit of effort I had, and I spent so many hours with my sponsor and therapist back then I had no time for anyone else. "I wish I'd known," I tell her. "But I had my head pretty far up my own ass."

"You didn't though." She looks away, towards the tiny, narrow window on the exterior wall, barred, like all of the windows I've seen in this building. "I watched you. I've kept track of you over the years, when I could. Even then you were already working so hard to make amends."

I was. And I can tell by that specific word that she knows why. One of the steps in AA is making amends for the shitty things we've done, at least where doing so won't cause any further damage. In those early years, I'd concentrated mostly on my brothers, and earning their trust again. But I also spent time speaking with professors and coaches who I had alienated. It would have been far easier to start over at a different college, and likely would have been less triggering. But it'd have been a coward's way.

"I never got a chance before now to apologize to you," I whisper. She'd kept track of me, but I hadn't made the same effort. Before the booze, Katniss Everdeen was that perfect, unattainable fantasy woman I put on a pedestal and never approached. And after, I locked her away, so terribly ashamed by my actions that I never sought her out, even though she would have been easy to find. I was terrified by how she might look at me.

But she's clearly a much bigger person than I could ever be.

"I think the time wouldn't have been right before now," she says. "For either of us."

We lapse into silence, Katniss still staring out the window, me fiddling with the mug I've picked up again. "Can I ask you something?" she says, and there's something in her tone that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Of course."

"That night... why me?" She's trying to keep her voice even, I can tell, but the slight waver slays me.

"You were there, and I was a drunken asshole," I rasp, but she shakes her head, glancing at me.

"It was more than that. The things you said…" she looks away, but not before I see the shine in her eyes. Not before I see the hurt I had been expecting all along. The knowledge that even all of these years later, my words continue to bother her is gut-wrenching. I feel like the biggest piece of shit.

"It was all bullshit, Katniss, the ramblings of an absolute lowlife shit of a human."

"There's always truth, even in ramblings," she says softly. "It certainly wasn't the first time I'd been called those things. But we'd never even spoken before then. I didn't know you even knew my name."

"I knew you, Katniss. I'd always been watching you." She turns back to me eyebrows raised, confusion in every line of her beautiful face. I don't want to make her uncomfortable, and I don't want to make excuses for my absolutely inexcusable behaviour. But she deserves the whole truth. I drop my gaze to my lap. "The truth is, I had a huge crush on you, nearly the whole way through high school."

She makes a little choking sound, and I can't bear to look at her. I know I'm doing unfathomable damage to our potential working relationship, confessing like this. I'll decline Plutarch's offer, if being here will hurt her. But I can't let her think that any of the awful things I said had even a speck of truth to them. I can't let her take any blame.

"In senior year," I continue, "I had finally convinced myself that I was going to talk to you, to ask you to the Valentine's dance. But then…" I trail off. My father had died at the end of January, and everything else in my life had fallen away, sucked into the black pit of grief.

A soft, cool hand lands on my forearm, and I glance up. Far from looking disgusted, as I was expecting, Katniss is looking at me with compassion, even through her confusion. "When I saw you that night," I whisper, barely able to get the words out. "I had already screwed up everything else in my life. I was just so angry at the world, but mostly at myself. I was drowning in regret and self-loathing. And you were there, and you were every bit as beautiful as you had always been. And you just represented everything I wanted so badly and had fucked up. My father was gone, my sport was gone, and the girl of my dreams was completely out of my league. And I lost it, lashed out at you instead of at the person who really deserved it. Me."

"You didn't deserve it either," she whispers, and her eyes shine silver under a film of moisture.

I place my hand over hers where it still rests on my arm, and she doesn't pull away. "I'm truly sorry, Katniss. Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life."

"I accept your apology." I squeeze her hand in gratitude, and a sad half smile ticks at her lips.

"I won't take the offer," I murmur, and her brow furrows again. "This is your career, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, being here."

She shakes her head. "You won't," she says. "I've been watching you for so long, cheering for you from the sidelines. I feel like I know you. And I know you won't ever repeat that mistake."

"I won't," I swear. "I'll always be an alcoholic, and there will always be a risk that I'll relapse. But I've learned so much in therapy, about communication and managing my emotions. About coping. I have better mechanisms now, and a really great support group behind me." It had taken a long time to make things right with my brothers, but they are my staunchest supporters now. And my sponsor, Haymitch, is a crusty old bastard, but he'd rip out someone's throat before letting me down.

"Then stay," she says. "I'd like to start again, if it wouldn't make you uncomfortable. Build up that friendship we should have had." She looks down at our hands. At some point, she'd flipped her palm and I'd entwined my fingers with hers.

"Always," I whisper in awe, and she smiles, that beautiful, elusive smile that I know will be the stuff of all of my future fantasies. And maybe, just maybe, the stuff of my future reality too.


	2. 321 Days Later

The formica table top under the mug I slide back and forth between shaking hands is so warped by time and use that the hot liquid shudders, licking the chipped cup edges.

A shadow falls across the table, casting the coffee slops into an ominous dim. Then the shadow shifts, and a royal blue medallion lands in front of me, glinting in the early morning sun.

"Congrats, kid," Haymitch says, his morning-rough voice like crushed glass. The cracked vinyl creaks and moans as he slides into the bench across from me.

I don't lift my gaze from the medallion. "Thanks," I grumble. But I don't feel much like celebrating.

He says nothing else, leaving me to my brooding until after the waitress comes to fill his mug with bitter coffee. Then, while he tops up the cup with an absolutely obscene amount of sugar, he addresses me again. "Spill it," he says, and I know he doesn't mean the rapidly cooling tea in front of me.

Haymitch is my sponsor, he's been beside me for seven and a half of my now eight years sober. An alcoholic himself, he's been there for me every single time the cravings have felt too strong to deny. But this is different. It's not cravings making my heart pound and my stomach roil.

It's so much bigger.

I don't confide in Haymitch much, usually. We talk sometimes about the stresses of my job, or social situations that might trigger me, and I know he'd give his life to save mine. But we're not friends.

Still, this is one situation he's likely to understand better than my brothers would.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the small black velvet box, setting it in the middle of the table.

"You know I love you, kid," Haymitch smirks. "But you're not my type."

I grin despite myself, the levity a welcome relief. "Nice of you to let me down gently," I snicker.

He smirks. "That's for the girl, then?" he asks, reaching for the box. He knows Katniss's name, has even met her a couple of times, yet still only ever refers to her as _the girl_, or _sweetheart_, which she'd hate if she knew. I nod as he pops the lid.

He whistles at the ring within. As he should. Despite the insane amount of student loans I still have to pay, the ring is an impressive one. I worked with a local jeweller to create something that would suit Katniss, something as unique as she is. He tilts the box side to side, watching the early morning light that streams through the grimy windows set the centre stone ablaze. After a few moments, he closes the box and hands it back to me, nodding again.

We lapse back into silence as I frown at the little box.

"If you're not sure what her answer's gonna be, you're not ready to ask the question," Haymitch says, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

"I know she'll say yes," I mumble. "We've already talked about the future. We're on the same page."

"Then what's the problem? You got cold feet, boy?"

"No." I flip the hinged lid on the little box open and shut, open and shut. Haymitch waits me out. He's always been good at that, letting me find the answers myself instead of foisting his own observations on me.

With a sigh, I stuff the box back into my pocket, then pick up the medallion, running my thumbnail over the embossed letters. _To Thine Own Self Be True. _Honesty is the only option. But it isn't an easy one.

"Do you trust her?" he asks, shaking me out of my silence.

I nod. "With my life."

"But do you trust her with your sobriety?"

I tamp down the urge to lash out at him. "You know she's been supportive since the beginning," I grunt. When Katniss first came back into my life, before dating was even a pipe dream, Haymitch was concerned. He knew that she was one of my regrets, one of the people I most strongly associated with my downward spiral. Not that any of it was her fault, on the contrary, her words were ones I clung to while I was digging myself out of the mess that I'd made of my life. But having her in my life had the potential to be a hell of a trigger, and Haymitch knew it. Especially when, several months after I began working beside her at the Panem Institute, we started exploring a relationship beyond friendship.

A relationship that has been more incredible than even my wildest dreams.

Her voice in my head no longer reminds me of the man I'm not, but of the man I am. She's generous with her reminders of how proud she is of me, how amazing she thinks I am. She never coddles me, never treats me like I'm made of glass. She just believes in me.

"You worried what the school will think?" I shake my head. The school has no anti-fraternization policies for the staff, and in fact, most of our coworkers were thrilled when Katniss and I started dating. Well, maybe not Alma Coin, she's still a little cold. But the others? Practically cheered.

Come to think of it, Finnick Odair might _actually_ have cheered.

"Then what's really the problem, boy?"

Even with Haymitch, it's hard to put in words. "I'm asking so much." It's barely a whisper. "Asking her to chain herself to me, to all of my shit, forever." She deserves so much better.

"That's the definition of marriage," Haymitch drawls, and I scowl at him. "Everyone brings their own brand of shit to the table," he clarifies.

"It's different," I say and he cocks one wildly overgrown eyebrow at me.

"Is it? Seems to me Sweetheart has plenty of baggage of her own."

He's not wrong. Katniss still struggles with the loss of her own father, when she was only eleven, and the way his absence forced her to grow up far too quickly. I was surprised, when we started growing together, to learn how much we had in common. Though I knew her father was gone—our sixth grade class had made sympathy cards for the Everdeen family when it happened—I had no idea that her mother also struggled with severe mental health issues, like mine did. In Lilian Everdeen's case, it manifested as crippling depression after her husband's death, which left far too much responsibility for keeping their family intact on young Katniss's shoulders, something I hadn't known when we were kids. It's part of why she was always so quiet, so separate from most of the rest of the kids at our school. Reserved.

It's also the reason she's not completely sold on the idea of having children of her own. With my family history of addiction, I'm not so sure I want to risk them either. But we've had some amazing, heartbreaking and yet hopeful conversations about it. And I know that we'll have many more in the years to come. Communication doesn't come naturally to either of us, but we're learning together.

"She'll always have to worry that I might relapse." That's the crux of it. Though my recovery has felt really solid lately, the danger will always be there. She'll _always_ be saddled with an alcoholic.

"Who's to say she won't go off the rails?" he counters. "Her mother is a nutjob."

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. "I never told you that, old man," I growl. I appreciate his looking out of me, but him digging around in Katniss's past is too damned far.

He snickers at whatever he sees on my face. "She told me," he says, and there's just a hint of amusement in his wizened face. "Wanted me to know that she's not the perfect person you put up on that pedestal." Part of me isn't surprised by this revelation. It's so very Katniss.

She is perfect, though.

"She's perfect for me," I mumble at my tea, and he laughs.

"Yeah, kid, she just might be. Puts up with your ugly mug anyway."

I glance up at Haymitch. That might be the first positive thing he's ever said about my relationship with Katniss.

He shakes his head, then tosses back the dregs of his coffee. "Go home, kid. And I ain't wearing a tie to your wedding, so don't get any damned ideas."

o-o-o

Katniss is still in bed when I get back to our house. She's an early riser by nature, but I'd snuck away at dawn to meet Haymitch, and it's only a little past seven now.

This is the first day of our much needed summer vacation. The school is residential and open year round, but the more relaxed summer pace means we can each get away for a few weeks.

She groans as I slip into bed behind her, rolling to snuggle into my arms. I kiss her silky hair, inhale her sleep-warm scent. Her fingers trace lazy patterns across my t-shirt before slipping under the hem to rest on my stomach. Her drowsy sigh is like music, soothes my soul, reminds me that this is right. We are right.

Maybe it was always an inevitability.

"Still so early, she mumbles, fingers sifting lightly through the dusting of hair that leads down below my belt, and my dick twitches hopefully.

I love sharing a bed with her, not just the sex, though god we have a fantastic sex life. But lazy mornings and hushed chats wrapped in each other might be even better than the sex.

Maybe.

"Go back to sleep, love," I whisper, stroking her back. Loving her slight weight in my arms. Marvelling that this is my life.

We lie quietly for several long minutes, just enjoying the peace of a morning with no work and nowhere in particular we need to be. But she doesn't fall back asleep.

I can't say I'm all that disappointed.

"How was Haymitch?" she murmurs sleepily against my chest.

"Crusty as always."

Katniss laughs, and I pull her in a little tighter.

She throws a leg over my thigh, then freezes when she comes into contact with the lump in my pocket. "Happy to see me?" she teases, wide awake now. I am, but I'm sure she knows the little box is not my dick, though it's nearly as hard.

"You have no idea how happy," I say, rolling her onto her back and hovering above her.

She stares up at me with silver eyes shining, black hair a tangle across the pillows. "I think I do, actually," she smiles. Those smiles used to be so rare, so elusive. But Katniss smiles a lot more now. As incredible as it seems, she truly is happy, being with me. As if reading my mind, she reaches up to trace my lower lip with one soft finger. "I love you," she says. And just like the first time she said those words to me, months ago, my heart swells up to fill my whole damned chest.

I am so lucky.

The last of my fear and uncertainty melts away. And though I had grand plans to do something special, I don't want to wait another minute. Katniss is mine, and I am hers, anything else is unthinkable. "Marry me," I murmur, and reach into my pocket.

Her eyes widen as the little velvet box comes into view. "Peeta," she whispers, eyes flitting back and forth from my eyes to my hand.

"I know it's quick, but I love you, Katniss, and I want forever with you." Maybe I always have. Even in the depths of my self-destructive hell, she was in my head. In my soul.

Her sleek calf wraps around my thigh, her hand sliding over my shoulder. Then before I realize what's happening, I'm flat on my back, staring at our bedroom ceiling. My heart slams against my chest like a jackhammer.

Then Katniss is straddling me, cheeks flushed, plump lips turned up in a grin. The answer is written across her face, but I need her words.

"Say yes," I implore.

"Yes," she says, shaking her head at me in fond exasperation. "Yes. I am so ready to do this with you." Then she's kissing me, and the little velvet box hits the pillow beside my head as I wrap my arms around her again.

It's only an hour later, gloriously naked, sweat-slick and sated, that I dig the little velvet box back out from between our pillows. "You didn't even look at the ring," I say with mock outrage. But it's not very convincing when I'm grinning ear to ear.

"You know the ring isn't the important part," she says. I do know that. The commitment matters so much more than a rock and a band of gold. But I tease her anyway.

"Well, if you don't want it," I start, but she stops my words with that scowl that reduces teenaged boys and grown administrators to trembling wrecks, but which I not-so-secretly think is adorable as hell. I kiss those scowling lips before pulling back and flipping the lid.

"Oh, Peeta," she breathes. "You designed this." Not a question. She knows me so well. "It's beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as my future wife is," I whisper, and my hands shake a little as I slide the ring onto her slender finger.

Engaged less than a year after reconnecting. I know there will be raised eyebrows, people who think we're moving too fast.

But I've been working my whole life for this. And she's been there, in the wings, waiting for me.

We're ready.


End file.
